Using @PearDeck to Make Students Aware of Their Thinking Process #FormativeAssessment #Inquiry #edtech

I wanted to share an activity I created to help demonstrate how Pear Deck can be used to guide students towards discovering new concepts. In this exercise, I have tried to present an example that works students up to developing new understandings. By giving students the opportunity to start asking the questions, the teacher naturally sparks student curiosity about the new topic and provides a pathway for them to create connections to the larger picture. As well, by building the activity in such a way that students are made aware of their own thinking and learning process, the teacher helps them build a solid foundation (understanding the ‘why’ behind what they are doing). This structure helps build critical thinking skills and requires students to apply their knowledge to form new and deeper connections as they work through the exercise. By doing this in Pear Deck, students are provided a ‘safe space’ to answer anonymously, and all students are required to contribute.

Below, I share a Deck with several examples (a Math example, an English example, and an Art example) of how Pear Deck can be used to guide students in becoming aware of their thinking process and to allow students to compare how their reasoning differs from that of their peers. As a math teacher, the graphing example was the easiest and most natural for me to create. In this activity, I help students learn how to sketch a graph of x=2. The assumption is that students have never seen graphs of vertical lines and have limited knowledge about graphing. They do know how to plot points, though. Through Pear Deck, students teach themselves how to graph a vertical line by building on prior knowledge. It’s a very simple concept and idea, but I think it’s an effective way to use of Pear Deck to help students discover a concept “on their own”.